Indiana Dem: White House is conspiring to put Baron Hill in Bayh’s spot

posted at 8:48 am on February 16, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

The question yesterday was whether dark-horse candidate Tamyra d’Ippolito would get enough signatures by the end of business today to ruin the plans of Evan Bayh and qualify for the primary ballot, making her the default Democratic nominee for his Senate seat. The question today is whether the Bayh announcement was an elaborate Kabuki dance meant to eliminate any primary competition for the White House’s handpicked successor to Bayh. d’Ippolito accused Rahm Emanuel of having colluded with Rep. Baron Hill weeks ago to quietly gather signatures in order to make the filing deadline today, and wants a lawyer to help expose the conspiracy:

Hoosier politics took an unexpected turn Monday night when Democratic Senate candidate Tamyra d’Ippolito accused the White House of conspiring with party officials to secretly draft Rep. Baron Hill to run against her. …

However, d’Ippolito said she was informed Monday that Hill, a blue dog who represents Indiana’s 9th District in the House, already has the necessary signatures and is sitting on them until the deadline. She accused White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel of colluding with Hill and the Democratic party county chairs to secretly supplant her as the nominee.

“I can’t confirm so I’m working feverishly to find out if this is the deal. If it is, there’s something unethical going on in Indiana politics,” d’Ippolito said. She then referenced Emanuel’s Jan. 9 appearance at a fundraiser for Hill in Bloomington and accused the president’s top political aide of playing kingmaker during that visit.

“Don’t you find that strange, Rahm Emanuel coming to Indiana?” she asked, adding that Emanuel was sent by the White House to “find a blue dog to put into power.”

D’Ippolito said she asked mutual friends to contact Hill repeatedly on Monday, without success. Hill’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday evening. If true, she called the arrangement “a setup”.

If it’s true, it would be unclear what laws the White House would have broken. Presidents often get involved in encouraging candidates to run for national office or governorships, and sometimes to discourage them as well. Those efforts almost always take place behind the scenes. About the only thing a lawyer could do would be to help plot out a campaign attack on Hill during the primary.

That being said, if the White House conspired with Bayh and Hill to game the timing to exclude any other primary challengers, that would be a particularly cynical ploy for any politician, let alone The One who campaigned on Hope and Change. It smacks of kingmaking of the most unsubtle kind, and an arrogance that would certainly be in character for both this President and his Chief of Staff. Indiana Democrats would rightly object to the specter of a President denying them the right to choose their nominee for the election.

It also sounds like this strategy would be perfectly suited for Baron Hill, who has trouble remembering his first name is not his title:

Meanwhile,d’Ippolito continues to push hard for the necessary 4500 signatures, plus some in reserve as a hedge against challenges. On her Facebook page, d’Ippolito brags about getting an outreach from the progressive grassroots fundraisers ActBlue, but also wants to show her independent streak by reaching out to, er, teabaggers:

We are calling all people to file signatures tomorrow Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Tea Baggers, everyone with a pulse go to your county clerks office tomorrow before noon in your district.

It doesn’t sound as if d’Ippolito knows anything about the Tea Party movement that she hasn’t heard from Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and Anderson Cooper. That’s something for Tea Partiers to keep in mind when considering her outreach to the Right, although having her on the ballot for the primary and possibly the general election sounds like a big win either way.

Blowback

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The congressman Carl Cameron mentioned is my congressman Brad Ellsworth Indiana 8th. Carl didn’t mention he also is a huge anti-amnesty legislator. Numbers Usa last time I checked graded him A-. Coats is D or F. Ellsworth whom we supported twice once over Hostetler is anti gay marriage,pro-life,pro-gun,anti-amnesty. Here’s the problem he is very close with Obama and anytime they need his vote healthcare etc.. they get it. So all of the afore mentioned qualities are meaningless. But no way we vote for the lobbyist Coats. Horrible candidate!

It doesn’t sound as if d’Ippolito knows anything about the Tea Party movement that she hasn’t heard from Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and Anderson Cooper. That’s something for Tea Partiers to keep in mind when considering her outreach to the Right….

…if she wishes the support of those not normally thought of as supporters of either her party or her apparent worldview, she’d do well not to solicit that support by referring to those from whom she needs a favor as practicioners of a rather aberrant (and unsanitary) sex act.

(When all this Maddow/Cooper/Olby chortling began, I had to look up what “teabagging” was on Wikipedia…and was immediately surprised that Cooper and Olby — and especially Maddow — already knew….)

She’d do well to come out of her little leftist bubble-world and meet some real folks.

I want to personally say I am sorry to the people of the Tea Bag Party if I have offended your feelings in any way. I still do not understand the terms you are speaking about but when I asked someone they reported back to me they thought it was something graphic. That was never my intent because I had never heard that term before in my life.

Since she didn’t know what tea bagging is, I explained it to her.

PTN, thanks for telling me about Ellsworth. Given a choice between him and Coats, I’d probably vote for Ellsworth. It’d be a tough choice.-

I don’t know the answer to your first question, but he always lied to his constituents. He would vote for cloture on unpopular bills, then vote against them if his vote wasn’t needed to pass them. Then he’d run home and tell us he opposed that bad, bad, bill. He got away with it for a long time, but the Christmas Eve vote on the HCR bill was the last straw, IMHO. It was such a high profile, highly disputed bill that everyone was watching. The lame stream media keep saying he had a 20 or 30 point lead, but Rasmussin’s last poll from January 25 had him within the margin of error from likely opponents.

I personally think he let the leadership and/or Uhhhbama know ahead of time and they timed it so nobody else would have time to get on the primary ballot.

Bwhahaha. Moonbats can’t run a business and think the solution is to legislate sucess for their failures by attacking those who toil for their piece of the pie. From the bits and pieces of her bio, she must be a trustfund baby.

For all of you talking about voting for Ellsworth over Coats – please pull your f*cking heads out of your asses.

Right now Ellsworth represents a very conservative district, and his votes represent that. The state as a whole isn’t quite as conservative, plus as a senator he can play the old “liberal for 4 years, conservative for 2 years game.” He’ll never join the Republicans on cloture votes, even if, like Bayh, he ends up voting against the final bill. He’ll vote for all of Obama’s judicial nominees, and probably vote against some judges nominated by Republican presidents. Any chance he’ll be as conservative as Ben Nelson, who represents a much more conservative state?

We’ve been down this road before in 2002 when a lot of conservatives voted for Mark Pryor in Arkansas. How’s that working out?

The congressman Carl Cameron mentioned is my congressman Brad Ellsworth Indiana 8th. Carl didn’t mention he also is a huge anti-amnesty legislator. Numbers Usa last time I checked graded him A-. Coats is D or F. Ellsworth whom we supported twice once over Hostetler is anti gay marriage,pro-life,pro-gun,anti-amnesty. Here’s the problem he is very close with Obama and anytime they need his vote healthcare etc.. they get it. So all of the afore mentioned qualities are meaningless. But no way we vote for the lobbyist Coats. Horrible candidate!